Last weekend

Last weekend I went to visit my old friend Mattias “the peacock” Stahre. He is currently working for an environmental consulting company and we have been doing some snake conservation work together.

Sir Peacock in all his shining glory.



The Peacock lives in Linköping, which is roundabout 140 km from my town so I got on the bus towards his town immediately after I finished work last Friday. I arrived there early evening. We went home, got some chow had a few bottles of beer and went to bed. The day after we woke up early and the weather invited us to take a quick look just outside the door. Approximately 500 meters from Sir Peacock’s house we found this little bugger, a juvenile Adder (Vipera berus).


After finding the little guy we decided to go to a better locality, where adders normally can be found in fairly large numbers. However, once at the locality we soon realized that there were no snakes and just a few Viviparous lizards (Zootoca vivipara) there. We left and went to a third place, a Natural reserve called Smedstad Dammar where snakes usually are easy to spot. It only took minutes to find the first adult adders. They were catching sun close to the main trail. Numerous people passed on this trail while we were watching the snakes but the animals didn’t seem to react at all.


We continued on the track and found an open area close to some buildings and a dog training court. Close to the wall of a stone construction we found a group of Grass snakes (Natrix natrix). They were crawling back and fourth between the wall and a pile of dead wood. One of them was chocked by the sight of the Peacock and displayed the “dead snake” defensive behavior.


We continued to look around and close to the dog training area we found this freshly shed male black adder.


Here you can see some of the buildings in the background.


The snake eventually got tired of staring into my camera lens and headed off against the dog training area. I hope it survived the dog owners…


After this we headed back home.


The day after we decided to visit another locality called Bjärka-Säby. I have visited this place together with the Peacock once before. That time we found adders everywhere. This day however, the first herp we found was a particularly beautiful Common toad (Bufo bufo).

We also found a bunch of Grass snakes. One individual approached us on several occasions, raised it’s head and observed us. Then it crawled away, seemingly unaffected by our presence.


After realizing that we were not going to find any Adders at Bjärka-Säby, we decided to return to Smedstad Dammar for a few more pics. We got there a bit later than the day before and thus the activity was a bit lower. I did however find adders in the grass at the same spot as the day before.



THE END

/Cherios!

I think you are a lucky guy! You find many nice things!